


Moving In

by Davechicken



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Abuse of furniture, First Time, Idiots not being great at communication skills, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-29
Updated: 2019-09-29
Packaged: 2020-11-01 12:42:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20815349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Davechicken/pseuds/Davechicken
Summary: They are fighting. Crowley does not like fighting.Eventually they are less stupid.Kisses are involved.





	Moving In

They are fighting. It is nothing new. After six thousand years, and an utterly prejudiced upbringing, you had to expect a few tiffs from time to time. In fact, some of them had lasted centuries, and more than once had devolved to public yelling and pouting.

This time, though, it’s different.

All the previous times they’d just been - well - ‘enemies’ or… co-Arrangementees. Unofficial best friends. Whatever. It had been labelled and not and inexplicable and not and all sorts of things, but they’d not been… this.

Which he still doesn’t know what ‘this’ is. Sure, they sort of live together, as much as two immortal beings who don’t actually need to sleep or earn a living do. Sometimes Aziraphale will forget to come ‘home’ for multiple days in a row. 

Not that Crowley pays attention. Not like it’s important. He doesn’t sleep, and they are eternal beings, and time is a construct and nothing is real and all that jazz. So it’s fine if he decides to get lost in some research or restoration project. Crowley has things to do. Things like - well - binge watch stuff. Cause minor mayhem for the He-- for the heck of it. Go shopping for new plants. Clean. 

He doesn’t care if Aziraphale just plain old forgets and doesn’t remember phones exist and doesn’t think about letting him know and just waltzes home to their (their? His? Their?) flat. Like nothing is wrong. Like Crowley didn’t wonder if maybe he dropped dead or got discorporeated or kidnapped or anything. It’s totally okay and it’s not like he used to know every single day _ before_. 

Anyway. This is the first real ‘fight’ since they ‘whatever’. 

Since it became okay to - stuff. Things. Together.

Kissing and feeling and things. Which - though he will deny it vehemently half the time - Crowley really likes. Even the feelings stuff, though it is awkward and uncomfortable and makes him wish they made sunglasses for cheeks. 

It had started with holding hands, which should have been - who even did that? Kids did, and dopey young Humans who were trying to make more dopey young Humans. And people who were old and might fall over if they didn’t. And people holding onto the dopey young Humans they made, or ones that made them and might fall over. He guessed. He hadn’t paid much attention.

And fine okay so what if he held an angel’s hand. Whatever! 

And so what if they went to the Ritz and the angel wasn’t pretending they weren’t friends now. And leaning in. And saying things. And smiling more than usual. And blushing and laughing and that weird ‘so we saved the world and defied Heaven and Hell and didn’t combust or get torn into a million, billion pieces’ kind of giddy relief and euphoria. And things like more smiling and touching and--

_Kissing_. Kissing. Which is stupid and silly and shouldn’t feel like it does at all. Like, why should it feel good if someone pushes their backup breathing hole and basically their petrol input for Human combustion engine against yours? It’s made for drinking wine, not… not others. Not for feeling wobbly breaths on your own lips. Not for touching at the edges of a smile. Not for doing weird wiggle things with the talking wobbly bit. 

But it does feel good and so whatever. They do it. And it’s fine and okay.

And hugging. They do that. And-- fingers in… hair… wings… over shoulders, around waists, and--

And that’s it. Which. Is okay. Because. He doesn’t need any more and it’s stupid to wan-- if anyone would want more it would be stupid. They kiss and they hold hands and they hug and cuddle and not one bit of it is necessary but it is pleasant and so why not.

And the angel comes and goes and sometimes stays and sometimes is gone and it’s normal, as much as an angel and a demon (retired?) can be normal. They were fine before. Apart from the whole ‘I don’t even like you’ and the ‘he’s not my friend’ and all the other stuff that was just automatic defence shit and so on. It hadn’t been real, hadn’t been true, and the sting was only temporary, and it’s all okay now because the angel actually… does. Like him. And. They are friends. Friends who do weird things with tongues. 

Friends who live forever and have open invitations to each other’s little realms and know everything about one another and have literally been in one another’s bodies and faced divine and infernal judgement pretending to be one another. And who now have - each other - and no one and no thing really else for the rest of their existences. 

The plants don’t count. They aren’t sentient and they can’t talk and he wouldn’t want them to, anyway.

Crowley isn’t even sure what started the fight, but it started, and now they’re uncomfortably avoiding one another without going too far away. Like, he isn’t prepared to go the fuck to sleep for a century, because the angel might do something dumb. And he’s also not prepared to find one morning that there isn’t an angel around or available to ignore. So it’s like being around an annoying insect that you have to keep an eye on so you know where it is, but also you wish the insect would just stop being annoying and go back to being okay so it’s no longer like your chest hurts so much that you think you need to shove your hand down your throat and turn yourself inside out to relieve the pressure, or - or - like you just wish that you could get to the point where you can both successfully ignore whatever it was that started this and be already into the ‘everything is fine until the next fight’ period.

It’s what he wanted, right? Before. He used to drop by the shop all the time he could convince himself it was okay to do so. Just. Wanting to be close for a bit. Make sure he’s okay. 

Wanting to be… around him. Near. Hear him breathe. Wanting to tell him what he’d been up to and how annoying he’d been and how much more annoying everyone _else_ had been. And also about whatever his new Interest was. And whatever the New Trend was. And his latest philosophical quandary or moral conundrum was. And which new place had opened doing something suitably dumb enough to interest the angel into putting into his mouth.

And… you know. Sprawl on his furniture. Drink wine with him. Talk shit about whales. Or skinny jeans. Or plastic straws. Or why Americans put ‘creamer’ in (always good for a long diatribe if you got the angel going on social drinking rituals). Or whether Achilles and Patroclus were a healthy couple. Or how you referred to fish who changed gender. Or which was the stupidest translation of the Bible. Or if he would ever be forgiven for the ‘prank’ of using an ancient religious symbol near certain fascist dictators and thus ruining it forever. Or if Humans realised how stupid they were for thinking that dinosaurs were real and hadn’t the feathers thing been enough of a hint. Or…

Yeah. Just. Anything. 

His plan hadn’t been all that well-thought-out. Just. Spend time with him. Without him dropping the occasional shade about his less-than-blessed nature. And maybe it being okay. And not having to be hidden. And. Stuff.

So he didn’t plan well enough. Planning isn’t his strong suit, except when he really throws himself into something. And when he can do that varies massively, and can’t be predicted, and more often than not no one appreciates the sheer effort and fixated passion he’s thrown into achieving his goal, even if he explains it extensively. 

They just don’t appreciate his genius. That’s all. They don’t get the nuance, they don’t understand his - his - the way everything is connected and…

Basically he also doesn’t really know what is within the realm of possibility when it comes to the angel. Things have always taken so long (moving from ‘hereditary enemy’ has been millennia of cognitive dissonance combined with a slow march of progress) that this knee-jerk has left him floundering.

He doesn’t need to make up an excuse to drop onto his couch. Doesn’t need to wheedle and find excuses to ‘tempt’ him or offer quid-pro-quo. Doesn’t need to drip feed ideas into him until he chinks through armour like water through stone.

The stone all gave way and now it’s all just a big puddle of confusion and an angel who may or may not be dating him and does squishy body face things and occasionally invites him out to dinner and sits in his (their?) flat, reading books when not occupied in other ways, blessing his bloody plants and drinking wine.

Uh.

But now? Now it’s the most days since Aziraphale has come home, and Crowley is getting Cross. And he could ring the bookshop, but that is not The Point. He could drop by but that is Totally Off Piste. He could leave the country and go live somewhere loud and always awake with neon lights and alcohol and sin and devastation, or he could just kick everyone off a small island and declare himself God-King-Emperor-Supreme and perform breeding experiments with plants and small mammals and maybe teach the small mammals how to worship him as a deity or demagogue or celebrity figure.

He’s stopped visiting entirely and Crowley has run out of Bake Off and Downton Abbey and he’s not quite ready to torture himself with reality TV again and there’s no new Marvel stuff and no one is allowed to know he’s into that at all. Not that it matters. Not that anyone would understand. 

Fuckers. All of them. They don’t know what they’re missing.

Aziraphale won’t come home, Crowley can’t stand another day with his plants knowing he’s - uh - that the angel has fucked things up, and he’s bored and it’s okay if he’s bored and annoying him. He isn’t going to patch things up, he’s going to torture him. If Aziraphale can torture him with his absence, he can damn well do the same by loudly and brashly existing in his sphere of influence. 

So there.

He parks obnoxiously outside the shop and forces his hips to move him through the door even though he wants to very much remove most of his skeletal structure and slink away into Soho and bite people until the tabloid websites and the Metro scream about snakes on a motherfucking Thames.

His hips betray him into a confused wobble when the first expression on the angel’s face is joy and then relief when their eyes meet through darkened glass. Are they supposed to be made up now? Or has the angel not realised they are fighting? Or is Crowley the only one who was upset? His jaws snap tight and he fights how hard he’s glowering, his temple twitching with the tension. 

“Crowley?”

“Angel.” How do you convey ‘we’re angry, right?’ without actually saying it?

“I thought you had forgotten about me.”

“...you thought _I_ forgot about _you_?”

Oh no. It’s turning from silent fight into open fight. Can’t he just be suitably annoyed in silence until magically something makes them both forget?

“...you haven’t come by in a while.”

“Me? You haven’t come home!”

“...I…”

“What, now you’re--” Oh. They hadn’t actually used the ‘h’ word before, had they? But it is. It’s his. So it’s theirs. And this is just a bloody shop and even if he has softer rooms for other things, it’s a place of fake commerce and also a cover, and it isn’t a real **home** and it isn’t a place you **live**.

Maybe he should storm out. You can do that and look cool. Make your point. Sashay away. Maybe he’ll even follow him. Maybe - ugh! - he’ll make a _scene_.

“I wasn’t sure I was welcome,” comes a soft voice that has no right to sound hurt and small.

“Welcome? Angel, you have **slippers**. And a toothbrush. And why wouldn’t you be welcome?”

Hasn’t he been clear enough? He even bought tea. And cocoa. And moved the furniture around. And - Hell - let him in in the first place. 

“I don’t think this is really the--”

“What? Time? Place? Do you want to schedule a session for us to discuss living arrangements? Sometime that is convenient for your obviously busy diary?”

“Crowley!”

“You’ve been gone for a _week_, angel.”

“I’ve been right here.”

“Exactly!”

“In my shop.”

“And you don’t think of the flat as home?”

“...I really must--”

Crowley wonders why the angel is walking past him, and instinctively grabs at his wrist and halts him mid-stride. Their eyes clash again, and then his face burns like caesium on a lake as Aziraphale reaches past him and flips the sign to ‘Closed’.

“There,” the angel concludes. “If we are having this discussion, I do not want to be interrupted.”

Oh. Crowley lets go of his wrist and wonders if he can somehow become a book and if that would even help. 

Maybe he could run.

If he could remember how.

“Crowley.”

“Mnfht.”

“Crowley, I--”

“Don’t.”

“Don’t?”

“I’m mad at you, you’re not allowed to be mad at me!” It’s his logic and he is sticking with it.

“Could we, perhaps, discuss why?”

“I told you!”

The angel pinches the bridge of his nose, clearly fighting the irritation that - like the demon’s - is often simmering away just below the surface. “Alright. How about we summarise.”

“You. Abandoner. Home-wrecker. Bastard. Cocoa. Slippers. Bookshop. Did I say ‘bastard’ yet?”

“And here I thought that was what you liked about me?” the angel jokes, weakly.

“Oh, don’t you _dare_ try to make fun of me! You left me!”

“And if I tell you I felt the same?”

“HOW? I was in our HOME. Where I INVITED YOU TO.”

“You… invited me to spend the night, and to come visit a few times.”

“WELL. FINE. I INVITE YOU FOR MORE.”

He’s shouting and close to hysterical and why is the angel making this his fault? He was supposed to know! Why is he so stupid as not to know?

“...thank you?”

“You were supposed to know! I got things for you! I even moved stuff!”

“Which… I appreciate, and perhaps I should have asked for clarification, but I wasn’t… I thought, perhaps, when you… when you left the shop and you didn’t come back since…”

Right. Okay. So that’s it. That’s when this fight began. Crowley does know it, and always knew it, but was… okay he doesn’t really like to think about That. 

“So you decided to move out.”

“I didn’t know I had ‘moved in’.”

“I gave you a key.”

“You also told me I could just kick the door in if I needed to.”

“Yeah! I don’t tell anyone that! They don’t even know where I live, unless they’re Hell and they used to be my boss!”

“...in which case, I appreciate the gesture. And if you still wish me to… ‘move in’, then…”

Crowley glowers. Yes. He does want him to ‘move in’. Hence. Angrily vibrating in front of the shop’s door. He wants him to move in and he wants to know it’s - something - and…

“We should discuss… what happened.”

“Or you could just bloody come home.”

“Crowley… I have… I have agreed to consider your - the - flat… ‘home’. But I want to… I _need_ to… understand.”

“There’s nothing to understand. It’s just a bloody flat.”

“No, I mean--”

He means the last time he was here, when he tried to kiss him and then the angel pushed him off and then the door opened to a customer and Crowley ran away and since they haven’t kissed or talked about Hogwarts or fed the ducks or done anything but awkwardly exist in close approximation of one another.

“It’s fine.”

“Well, I don’t feel fine about it.”

“No, it’s--”

“You haven’t come to see me, since.”

“You pushed me off!”

“You were - I wasn’t - I hadn’t expected it!”

“You didn’t think I’d kiss you? Hello. You kissed me plenty.”

“Yes, and I enjoyed it, but you - this is--”

“I get it.”

“Do you?” Aziraphale looks so lost. “Could you tell me, then?”

Fine. Crowley folds his arms across his chest, defensively. “You’re ashamed of me.”

“I - what?”

“You don’t want people to know you like kissing me - maybe because I’m a demon, or because they’ll think you’re homosexual, or because you actually think kissing is gross and weird, or--”

“Crowley…”

“...and it’s fine. Whatever. I can be your dirty little secret. But I don’t really want to ruin your ‘thing’ here, if you are ashamed of me.”

“Nothing could be further from the truth.”

“Yeah? Well, why did you--”

Hands grab his bolo, and he’s off-balance because his arms are folded, and the angel is jumping up and smushing their wine-ingestion areas together again, and it’s even more messy and odd and squishy than usual. He squawks, and grabs at waistcoat and jacket and knows his glasses have slid down his nose and he’s gawping like a fish.

“I do want to kiss you.”

“...so… you…”

“You took me by surprise, and… and I was concerned someone would walk in.”

“So?” So he is ashamed.

“So I didn’t want them to see me being intimate with my… lover? Significant other? What… what are we?”

“...uh…” Good question. “I did invite you to live with me. For. Kind of forever.”

“Yes. Well.” Flustered, but still holding him close. 

Crowley bends to accommodate, and they end up wobbling in an unsteady locked orbit, like two stars that forgot to spin. 

“I… what we… do… are… it isn’t wrong. Or bad. But some of it is… private. Some of it I… do not want others to see. Because I want it to just be us.”

“...right.”

“No, Crowley, listen: I would gladly hold your hand in public. Kiss you. Sit with my hand on your knee. Tell people we are together. I… I have wanted to do all of those things, but I didn’t… know how to ask.”

“You could have just… done them,” he mumbles.

“Perhaps. But look how easily a kiss here had us arguing and avoiding one another? I… I was too afraid to… to broach the matter, because you…”

“Me?”

“You are… oh, dear…”

“No. Tell me.”

He didn’t mean it to sound as pleading as it does, but - too late now.

The angel pulls his head down closer, and their brows meet. It’s oddly intimate and vulnerable, and Crowley feels a strange shudder travel the length of his soul. His wings ache to flare out, and his heart strains to explode, and his tongue wants to lick the angel’s face before he sinks his teeth in because right now, nothing is sensible or understandable or--

“I… when I touch you, you… seem to be afraid,” Aziraphale whispers. “And I am, too. So I thought I should go… slower.”

“Well. I-- you’re an angel.”

“And you’re a demon.”

That isn’t what he… “You’re - you know. We don’t. And. I didn’t - and you might not - and then--”

A soft hand cupping his cheek almost slays him. It’s so shockingly tender, loving, caring… it’s so achingly good and why did they act like fucking morons for so long over a single kiss when they could have been touching faces and holding hands and doing weird things with lips and teeth? 

Crowley wants to fucking cry and that’s pathetic and stupid. Cry. Because his angel is holding his face, and then pushing his glasses away to wipe at his tears. Oh fuck. He is crying.

“You thought because I… pushed back… that I… was not interested?”

“I… just a…”

“Say it.”

Headshake.

“Say it, please.” Softer, asking. Not demanding, asking. 

“...thoughtyoudidn’twantmeandIwassomedirtylittlesecretandthatyouweredisgustedbymeand--” No. Breath. Space between words. He’s hiding his face in that palm like the snake he is. “...thought… you… were just… to humour me or… that we had to… hide like…”

“I pushed you away because I’d been wanting… more. And I… couldn’t… risk trying that,” Aziraphale admits, his own voice breaking. “Every time we kissed. Touched. I… craved more, and it was becoming difficult to restrain myself.”

He flicks his eyes up in plain shock. Nips his teeth briefly into the pad of the angel’s thumb. “You thought you… might go too far?”

A sheepish, flustered nod. “And that you might not want to, and I wanted to… discuss it with you… but then the door opened as I feared would happen, and by the time I could muster my tongue, you were gone.”

“You… you weren’t… you weren’t ashamed of being caught kissing me? In - in your shop?”

“Only because I wanted so very much more with you, and _that_ I did not want anyone to see.”

Oh. Ooooooh.

Shit.

“But you didn’t come home,” Crowley complains. 

“And you didn’t come here. Which is also my home. Which… which I hoped had become yours, or - or that it would, in time.”

Here? Stuffy, books, Humans, tea, and-- like any of that had ever mattered. He’d wanted it to be home, as much as he’d wanted the angel to come with him. He’d spent so much time here, soliciting any scrap of attention he could, making up stories about how the angel truly appreciated his company as much as he did his. 

Wanting. Yearning. Aching. Wanting hands to hold. Lips to kiss. Smiles to watch. Laughs to hear. Wanting to hear about his day - or even share it. Wanting… wanting. Just wanting to be closer, no matter how. Wanting to know he was welcome, was… home. 

Was his. That he… belonged.

“Perhaps it would have helped to… tell you,” Aziraphale says, ruefully. His fingers stay in place holding him tenderly, pressing fingertips into pressure-points. The other hand combs up and into his hair, teasing little moans of pleasure from his scalp. 

“Mnfh.”

“...and for you to tell me,” he continues, only mildly rebuking. “Instead of us both holing up and waiting.”

“Kind of… what we do, though, right?” After all, he’d tried for thousands of years and got so far as ‘whatever’ as the best way of explaining what they were to one another. 

“So far. But we… don’t have to. After all… you… you did come to see me.”

“I came to annoy you.”

“You came to resolve things,” Aziraphale insists. “Which may have included annoying me until we… did.”

Of course. Stupid angel. Crowley always came when it was necessary. Even if he was told to go away. Even if he was told he wasn’t w-- a painful wrack of memory makes him choke down on a cry, and then there’s lips on his, apologising by kissing the words right into his mouth. 

Kissing. And kissing. Biting and that tongue that knows so many smart words and is expressing them directly onto Crowley’s. He’s suddenly slammed backwards into the door (making the bell ring and making him jump, but somehow switching something on in the angel’s head because WHAT IS HIS KNEE DOING THERE?????).

Hands that rove and rake and Crowley’s astonished that the angel isn’t part octopus, because he’s pretty sure the laws of physics have been thoroughly origami’d to allow him to find skin and their legs are now a bowl of spaghetti or something because where is his and what is air and hol-- no - HOLY SHIT how is he licking his tongue like that and humping his thigh and undoing his belt? How? Why isn’t he a quivering, jibbering wreck of nerves and sensation and--

“Here?” Aziraphale asks, his voice rough as sin and a trillion times more sexy than anything Hell ever thought could be tempting.

“W-what?”

“Here. Us. This.”

“Uhm.” He’s not sure what he’s asking, but the kissing has stopped, and now he’s the one humping pathetically. It’s so undignified. But stars, does it feel so good. So much like being drunk, but - but - different. Giddy and warm and happy and… and… cared for and… wanted and…

He definitely, definitely wants more. And from the way Aziraphale has basically ravaged him to a wreck of need, he’s sure the angel does, too. And knowing that, knowing it’s not… wrong… gross… weird… or if it is, he doesn’t care…

“Do you want… do you want it to be here? When - when we--”

“Say it,” Crowley begs him. He wants to hear it. Wants to hear the words fall from those lips. 

“Do you want our first time to be here? In m-- our shop?”

First. As in. More. As in. This is - and then - and--

“Fuck me,” Crowley begs, loving the way the word feels in his mouth. How visceral and guttural it is. A wonderful curse, and an even better act. A push of breath after a kiss, followed by a click of the tongue that sounds like their hips connecting. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. FUCK.

“Oh!”

Wanting to show two can play at the sexy game, he lurches and moves to sink his teeth into the curve of the angel’s neck, right above all that stuffy fabric, gulping past the heartbeat and the swallowing. He grabs hold of Aziraphale’s ass, grinding him closer, parting his legs and welcoming the roll and push as they search for a friction that can’t ever be enough. 

“Oh, Crowley-- yes! Right there… ah…”

He can play hard, too. Can use his tongue and teeth and ignore the taste as he undoes the bowtie. Hunts out the salt skin below, tastes the surprise in his sweat. Fingers are back to his belt, and now it’s more than just undone. It’s pulled free, loop by fatal loop, until the whole snake-band of it is free from his hips and thuds somewhere by their feet. 

Their ‘first’ time. First. And. It’s in the fucking bookshop. This shrine to propriety and a distant age, huddled right in the middle of the not-so-prim gay district. A big flag saying ‘come hither’ just written in Linear B with an ancient pictogram of a sad face next to an eggplant. Do me. Don’t. Do me. Don’t. 

Crowley wants. He wants here. This place where they talked, and laughed, and had fights, and grew closer by the day. This place where - for the first time - the angel truly settled and he could find him. Where he’d put down roots and not closed the door. Opened it, in fact. Quite literally opened the back door, to the words and thoughts that weren’t public. 

No bed. No need. No ‘house’, but certainly home. 

It had been all Aziraphale, or so he’d felt. To begin with, though he tried to subtly leave his scent and mark over the territory, it had only been that of a transient hopeful. A lodger, or a tenant. And then the rejection had made him feel like it wasn’t open to him any more, like this was holy ground his profane feet couldn’t tread upon, like his… affections and desires were… transgressive and… unwelcomed.

And he wants that to change. Wants the angel to kiss him. Grope him. Make love to him. Wants to defile and bless this place with love and lust. Wants to change this space forever, cast the spell of their union and turn it into something new. Something better. He wants to claim, be claimed… and he wants the angel to wear considerably less clothes.

He also wants to stop waxing poetical about it all, but that must be Aziraphale rubbing off (no innuendo intended, for once) on him.

“C-couch?” Aziraphale suggests.

“Desk,” Crowley corrects. Official. Formal. Central. An altar, instead of a bed. It’s only fitting.

“Shall… I perhaps pull the blind and lock the door?”

Crowley snorts a laugh. They’ve been shoved up against said front door, grinding and groaning like horny Humans all this time. Not that anyone could - or would - have tried to come inside, but he wonders if anyone’s seen the very proper bookshop owner ravishing him up against the glass pane. Whatever would they think? 

“Might be good, unless you want to sell tickets.”

“Much as I know there’s an audience for someone as captivating as you, I would rather keep you only to myself,” Aziraphale snaps. It isn’t angry, but it is possessive and jealous.

And it makes Crowley want to damn well propose right then and there. Not like - well it - should he? Hmm. It could possibly be both incredibly premature, and also ridiculously far too late at once. 

Later, then. At his - their - flat. Something special to do right, to do with a plan, to do… with meaning. He smiles at his little secret, and nuzzles his nose behind the angel’s ear. “M’only yours. Don’t worry. Might look like a slut, but--”

“I know.”

He supposes Aziraphale must. 

“I’m good with no random interlopers making you jump,” Crowley says, trying to make light of the last time, trying to show it’s… okay.

A snap of fingers and he feels and hears things move, and he’s suddenly standing with two hands full of taut, angelic ass… and an angel who looks as flustered as he feels. Who is cupping his face so tenderly again, like he’s something… something… precious? His thumb connecting with the jut of his cheekbone, and the other resting surely and solidly on his slender waist.

And they just… for a moment, all they can do is look. Hold on, and look. Crowley feels soft eyes slake over him, drinking him like a river in a desert country. Aziraphale knows what he looks like, for heck’s sake, but he’s tracking all over like he’s never seen him in a thousand years. 

“Hey… leave it out.”

“What?” 

“You know,” the demon mumbles, his own eyes darting to see and running to the wall when the weight of it is too much.

“Can’t I appreciate my… lover?”

“You know what I look like.”

“I know what cake tastes like. I still enjoy it every time.”

Crowley snorts. And squirms. “Are you comparing me to dessert?”

“I very much enjoy dessert.”

“...true.”

“I enjoy you inestimably more.”

He shouldn’t find that both oddly endearing and even more oddly arousing, but he does. Oh, does he. The heat in his eyes, the tiny poke of pink tongue past lips that have just been on his… Crowley pulls him in again, demanding they rut crotches and get more of that not-enough friction. 

“Do you…” How do you politely ask? “You sure you’re…”

“Ready to do this?”

Ready. Willing. Knowledgeable enough to have a clue. All of the above.

“I’m ready,” the angel insists. “Are you?”

“I was born r-- that sounds really bad in context, doesn’t it?”

“We didn’t have a childhood, but yes, the implication is unfortunate.”

This feels good. Right. Like them. Half undressed and bantering instead of getting to the point. He takes a steadying breath, and… “I asked you to move in forever, angel. I think I’m as ready as it’s possible to be, without - perhaps - already be doing it.”

Which is when he realises his angel is just as nervous as he is. Which makes sense, and this is a big thing. None of this comes naturally to their - species? Kind? They’re from the same stock, even if they evolved somewhat differently. They aren’t plumbed up for it as standard, it’s very much an optional extra, and there’s - to his knowledge - never been an angel who… did the do. 

Demons, probably. He just didn’t spend enough time with them to find out if the bragging was true or not. Didn’t want to, either, considering some of the talk.

Crowley lets go of the ass, and puts his hand over the one on his face. Holds it, as he turns to kiss the palm, and then turns to hold the angel’s gaze. “Only if you really are ready. I mean. I don’t want you to feel you have to.”

“I was the one who was thinking indecent thoughts when all we did was kiss,” he replies, uncertain and fussing.

“I would hope you realise you weren’t the only one.”

“Oh?”

“It’s mutual, angel. I… yes.”

Now they’ve taken a pause, he can see the sense in maybe talking a little. Rather than rushing headlong and hoping, like they have so far. Even if his crotch is saying it would also like to talk, it thankfully has no literal voice. 

Aziraphale lets him guide him over to the desk, and (after briefly considering sweeping everything off in a grand gesture) he snaps things neatly away, leaving a bare, wooden expanse.

They’re holding hands. Dishevelled and aroused and faintly ridiculous and looking at an empty desk.

“What if I do something wrong?” The whisper is so earnest, although totally unnecessary.

“Like what?”

“...if I knew, I wouldn’t do it, would I?” Aziraphale can be very curt when he wants to.

“Look. S’not like I know what to do. You could do it wrong and I wouldn’t know.”

“Don’t say that!”

“If it feels good, does it really matter? You aren’t gonna give me the clap, or a kid, and-- okay. What if we start with kissing again and… see what happens?”

“You wanted me to be all…” A gesture that is likely to indicate ‘passionate and seductive and self-assured’.

“I wanted you,” he insists. And jumps onto the desk, legs swinging and parted. He bites his lip enticingly, and then blinks as his glasses are removed.

“Want to see properly,” the angel explains.

“Hmm. Like what you see?”

“Very much so.”

He steps closer again, and Crowley raises his fingers to dance feather-light across his chest. It’s broad, and he can see the glow just below the surface of his body. Can see where - somewhere just out of reach - his wings tremble at the gesture. 

Aziraphale is beautiful. Always has been. Glowy. No. Radiant. But with a chaotic sort of energy, one more emotion than reason. Pulled by his heart to this thing, then that. Caught in the filigree of rules and expectations, and surging through the gaps in his gilded cage. Fire, but celestial fire. Beautiful.

“Don’t you know what I look like?” he teases, back.

“I do. And I like it. So I want to see more.”

“More?”

“More. More smiles. More… of you.”

“Oh, my.”

“You just had your hands nearly in my pants, and now you’re shy?”

Aziraphale really is a bastard. A smug one. He shuffles silently closer, until his hips are between Crowley’s thighs. Delicious heat, and that smile that could power every kettle in the country for a century.

“I suppose I am.”

“Are you fishing for more compliments?” He starts to unbutton his shirt, on the way down, opening him like a butterfly chicken. Except, sexier. Butterflies aren’t sexy, either. Damnit, only this monster really is, and he defies all poetic description.

He has no right being so sexy. With his stupid tartan and dumb insistence on remaining fifty years of paces behind the times. And his thighs that are more Michelin than Michaelangelo. And - and - ugh!

“Am I going to get them?”

“Are you going to join in if I say yes?”

Warm, flat palms high up his legs. Thumbs pressing on the softer, inner parts. Easing his joints wider, like he needs to come even closer to him. Crowley is startled when a hand shoves under his ass and then hefts him up, but then - like a magician with a tablecloth - a flourish has his trousers and pants from under him.

Indeed, he’s not sure where they’ve gone. But he’s now naked from waist to socks, and he’s sitting down on a hand that’s pinned beneath his butt, and it’s stroking a finger in the crevasse between his cheeks. 

Which. Makes things kind of… bubble is the wrong word, but also right? Giddy sort of tingle and buzz. He responds by pushing layer after layer off the mille feuille of the Eastern Gate, watching his eyes in breathless silence as they edge closer together.

There isn’t anything much you can say, when your angel is teasing a finger over your bum, and nudging up under your shirt to skirt across your belly and glance the inside of his wrist against the head of your dick in the process. Or when you’re finding that his chest is very faintly dusted as you ease him out of his protective shell.

How do you find the words? As you let him push your shirt above your head, and then give up and send everything away with a little growl, because it takes way too long and you’ve waited longer than empires for him just to kiss you?

Anger giving way to lust giving way to affection. Soft thighs that wobble a little when he breathes. Pink nipples that make him hiss when you touch them. Hopeful eyes that promise and demand. That smile. That… everything.

“You know, right?”

It’s backwards. He’s Han Solo, isn’t he? He shouldn’t go first. Except with a blaster, and this is not a shoot out.

“Tell me anyway,” Aziraphale begs.

Damn him. Literally.

“You can’t guess?”

“I might guess incorrectly.”

Eyes so wise and knowing, and the one thing they’ve never known is this: how to do this, be this, say this. Crowley’s tried with actions, instead of words. Tried to make it clear it’s real, not just - not just something that could slip past lips colloquially. Not just a meaningless collection of syllables and sounds. 

He does. And he can’t say it, but he does. He loves him with every fibre of his damned and blasted being. He loves him, and he can’t live without him, and he wants to be with him, and spend his life with him, and hear his jokes and watch his magic tricks and argue with him about the best duck feed and…

Tired of waiting, the angel says it for him. Says it in the way he surges forwards into a kiss, and doesn’t stop moving until Crowley’s arms are around his neck for support as he pushes him down and onto his back. Hot, bare skin on hot, bare skin. It’s maddeningly raw, like licking a power socket because you want to know what it feels like. Like holding onto lightning with one hand as your other reaches over the edge of your rocking rowboat to trail fingers in the ocean. 

A tongue that tastes like emotions should taste, and then he’s aware that the angel took the time to line things up, and when his hips rock… he can feel the very lewd press of an answering erection nestling alongside his. Proof positive. Validation most sincere and intriguing. Annoyingly close, but too far.

Somewhere along the line, his legs cinched around Aziraphale’s waist, and his fingers found purchase against his broad, strong shoulders. He’s pretzeled around him, pinned into the desk, clinging to him and unashamed to show how much he wants and needs this. Show how out of his head he feels. Show and--

“I do. Love you. You know.”

“I do know.” There isn’t even any smugness, not now. Not as their noses tap together and their bodies roll and yaw. “And I love you, Crowley.”

It’s still exhilarating to hear it, even though the finger is back and exploring. He’s taken the ‘claim your territory’ thing to heart, or maybe he enjoys the idea, or… knows how much Crowley wants it. Wants to feel… helpless and helped. Full and satisfied. Sore and loved. 

“You do?”

“I do.”

He wants this. So badly. Wants… wants a name for it. Them. Wants Aziraphale to remember him, every time he sits at this desk. Wants him to think about him, anyway. Wants to know he’s more than any sense of rightness or propriety. That he’s just as important as the books he claims are work, but really… really are love. 

Crowley only knows in theory what this should feel like, and in his imagination, there’s no way it would be anything but fantastic when that digit pushes past his rim. So of course that’s how it feels. All the worry about ‘wrong’ or ‘dirty’ is gone, and it’s just a welcome and enjoyable glide, like their kisses feel. 

“Like this?” Aziraphale asks, pulling up from the latest assault on his collarbone.

The demon has his heels squeezing that gorgeous ass between them, and he would say yes to pretty much anything he asked, right now. Hazy nodding, and then he scours that pink-cheeked face. “And - you?”

“I think I should like to try many things.” The angel smiles, hedonist to the end. “With you. And I don’t just mean… bedsport.”

“Mmmm?”

The finger becomes two. Stretching him out to eternity, making him melt like hot fudge sauce over pudding. Lazy, building pleasure. Slow, like the burn of their ardour over the years, and just as impossible to ignore. 

“If we are cohabiting partners, we could… go on dates.”

“Don’t… we already?”

“I - I meant… more… and… more… obvious.”

“You want to hold my hand at the Ritz?”

“I might go so far as to kiss you, to the appropriate level of course.”

Three fingers, and Crowley finds a new holy tongue as they kindle something gut-deep and ages-old. It’s just physical, but it isn’t, too. It’s like he’s offering himself on this table as a sacrifice to burn up and be consumed in the flames and the tongues. Like he’s allowing that spark of goodness (which Aziraphale doesn’t realise is just the angel himself) to glow. Like this is a covenant, a pact, a promise, a contract. One he signs his real name to, one he signs his - whatever passes for his soul - to. 

“Movies? Shows? Concerts?” He should ask, now. While they are both in the right mood to talk and request and give.

“Can we work up to be-bop?”

“No, but we can work up to rock music, by way of the Proms and chamber music. But in secular buildings, please.”

“Anything else?”

So much more. “Want… you to… when people ask…”

The finger bends and whites out all kind of thought, making his back arch and his heels tug and his hands claw. The pathetic mewling noise can’t possibly be him, but he’s - it’s - parts he didn’t know existed suddenly declare Aziraphale as the most holy, wonderful, beloved, adored… his body clenches and pulls, wanting and needing and he can’t _see_.

“You want me,” comes the dangerously hungry purr, “...to inform the world that you belong to me, with me, forever.”

“Yes!” About the only word he still knows.

“You want me to hold you on my arm like the beloved creature you are, the one I want to spend my whole life with. You want me to be your mate, your partner, your companion.” 

“Yes, oh, fuck, yes.” It’s what he’s wanted - all he’s wanted - for as long as he can remember.

“You already were. But now I’ll tell the world, and let you hear.” 

Somehow the fingers are out, and something more primal is in. Something more intimate, even, than the fingers that navigate his way through the world. It’s silky-slick and firm and unyielding, and the rut that drives it home makes the demon howl in bliss.

“Wings,” he begs, needing something to hold. 

Aziraphale is shaking above and inside of him, rocking very slightly on his toes as they stay locked together. He’s as deeply affected, and Crowley can feel the soft fall of tears that have glazed his cheeks and dripped from his jaw. 

“Of-- of course, my dear.”

White and glorious, they arch and stretch out, and Crowley pushes up the wrong way through the primaries, fussing the barbs and then finding the downier fluff by the strong leading edge. Through, and then he can grip the bone and use it to bounce and thrust back against him, feeling the rising friction kindle that wildfire he knows is just on the periphery of their vision.

“I love you,” he whispers, bolder, into the shell of an ear. Kisses the damp cheeks, cleans the grief from his face. “I do. You. You are my world, angel. They can take everything else from me, so long as they leave me you.”

“I have wronged you so terribly.”

“No. They tried to make you. And you didn’t.”

His objections had been lip service, Crowley knows. Painful to hear, but he’d always come through. Actions, not words. Like the demon, he’d done what he could to communicate, fought past the censorship and the fear, treated him… like his equal. 

Like his best friend. In the fullest, truest sense. And maybe this private tango isn’t really needed. They were happy before, other than work. And it’s weird and funny and they’re just squirming about with things touching, things that enjoy touching… but it’s not required. Certainly pleasant, but not anything like as dangerous and terrifying as he’d built it up to be. Or maybe because it’s him, because he’s deeper inside than this already…

The promise, the acknowledgement… the security in knowing it’s _real_... that goes much deeper inside, and the breath he hadn’t known he was holding just… goes. 

“Nowhere is home,” he says, as he realises it. “Not without you there.”

Not a shop, or a flat, or the Earth, or any planet in any solar system. It’s this preposterously, irksomely imperfect being who is the only one he would ever truly care for. His angel.

That makes Azirphale cry loudly, his body caught in the riptide of emotion and motion, a gush of release and the scent of cakes and books and leather and love. Crowley feels it, and tightens to hold him in place. Lock them like this, home in one another’s arms. 

He’s pretty sure the angel is weeping again, and he lets go of the wings to pull his face where he can kiss each tear away. He’s still aroused, but that can wait. His chest is constricting with empathy and compassion he denied for so long, and his angel needs the comfort more.

“I’m sorry,” his lover whispers, between sniffles. “I do love you. Truly. And I never want to be apart again.”

“Crowleys mate for life, so you’re in luck,” he snarks, lightly. 

“Do… could I possibly… would…”

“Yes,” he laughs.

“You don’t know what I wish to ask for!”

“I’m still going to say yes.”

“Very well, then. You should put your arousal to good use in a timely manner, if you wish to ‘claim’ me in return.”

Oooh. Interesting. And fitting, too. He grabs hold of the wings and slam-rolls the angel onto his back, still impaled upon his cock. “You sure?”

“Indubitably.”

“I suppose it’s better than--”

He isn’t allowed to finish, because Aziraphale kisses him again. Yeah. Probably for the best.


End file.
